3 scientists win Hong Kong’s Shaw Prize for developing therapy for rare leukaemia

Three life scientists from mainland China and France have won Hong Kong’s Shaw Prize for developing a therapy that has turned a rare form of leukaemia from deadly to widely curable.Professor Emerita Anne Dejean, Professor Hugues de The and Professor Chen Zhu have won in equal shares the life sciences and medicine prize of the Shaw Prize, which has been dubbed the “Nobel Prize of the East”.The three academics were recognised for their discovery of the leukaemia" class="entity-link entity-topic" data-entity-id="135347" data-entity-type="topic">molecular and cellular bases of leukaemia" class="entity-link entity-topic" data-entity-id="135345" data-entity-type="topic">acute promyelocytic leukaemia, a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer, as well as pioneering a synergistic targeted therapy that greatly reduced the mortality of the disease.